Another thread and it’s options reminded me of a converstation I’ve heard over and over again. That is JFK is overrated. This from people who were alive when he was elected. (I wasn’t.) Why do people like him so much?
I don’t have a mixed feeling about him. No strong feelings either way. I was born decades after he died.
If you don’t like him, you can say why too.
I think the source of him being overrated is that not everyone thinks he would’ve not escalated Vietnam but that he would have done exactly what Johnson did.
I don’t remember JFK myself - I was 3 when he was shot. From what I’ve learned since:
Liked for: bring youth, energy, kids, beauty, style and wit to the White House, and for being the first Catholic and (I believe)
…
That’s absurd. JFK has the AirTrain. You have to take a bus to get to Laguardia.
… I believe the first person of Irish descent to be POTUS. (Sorry, hit send too soon there.)
I don’t know how much he was appreciated at the time for his handling of the Cuban Missle Crisis, but he saved the world IMNSHO, and almost single-handedly. Certainly over the advice of the JCS.
Disliked for: being liberal, Catholic, inexperienced, pretty-boy, lightweight, not getting a lot of bills passed, not being anti-commie enough. The rumors of affairs hurt him in some circles. Sure you saved the world in the Cuban Missile Crisis, but what have you done for me lately?
That’s what I’ve been able to put together.
Here’s what I remember as specific criticisms that weren’t just right-wing rants.
His father bought the election for him.
He mishandled his first summit with the Soviet Union and the Bay of Pigs invasion so badly that the Soviets and Cubans decided he was weak – leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
He was uninvolved when it came to Vietnam, allowing the policy of escalation to grow. Even if he had been more involved, he believed in the “domino theory” and would have pursued the same course as Johnson.
He tried to strong-arm the steel industry when they raised prices.
His legislative accomplishments were unimpressive. In other words, he was all talk.
On the other hand, he was charismatic, a motivating force, and he really did deserve the credit he got for handling the Missile Crisis after it started.
Bottom line, though, he died less than three years into his first term, so realistically most impartial judges give him an “incomplete.”
And don’t forget that at the time of his death he wasn’t considered by all to be such a great president. One of the books near the top of the New York Times best-seller list at the time of Kennedy’s death was Lasky’s book arguing that he was a dud.
From all the reading I’ve done over the years, this is my main critisism. The whole Kennedy clan, with the possible exception of the older pilot brother killed in WWII and Robert, are morally bankrupt cheats and frauds, funded by ill-gotten gains during prohibition. Kennedy curse? More like Kennedy justice.
I could be wrong. Been before, will be again.
Kennedy is my single favorite president of the modern age, for one simple reason: he sent America to the moon. He declared that we would land on the moon before the decade was over, and we fucking did it. We threw everything we had into the space program - trained scientists and mathematicians, recruited the best military pilots and aircraft engineers, got the whole civilian population excited about the idea of going into space. And it paid off, as planned. We landed on the moon.
That kind of attitude is exactly what needs to be applied to the current energy crisis. We will be off oil by the end of the decade. That kind of absolute determination is what we need now. Unfortunately I don’t see it from any politician.
I mostly agree that Kennedy is overrated. A very charismatic man but he didn’t accomplish very much.
Yes, he got us through the Cuban Missile Crisis. But he also got us into the Cuban Missile Crisis. And some of the credit for our survival is due to luck and the Soviets.
The moon race was a mixed-blessing. It did put a man on the moon within ten years. But by making space exploration a race, he may have cut off its future. He made it all about going to the moon first. After we did that, people asked why we should go back into space.
Hard to say where he would have gone over Vietnam. But anyone who claims he would have withdrawn America from Vietnam is arguing against the evidence. Kennedy consistently escalated American involvement throughout his term of office so a withdrawal would have been the biggest policy change of his Presidency. And Kennedy was a compromiser who liked the split the difference - it’s a lot more likely he would have kept sending more troops in increments.
See, even if that is true, the very fact that Kennedy was able to get it done is what impresses me. Not the ultimate outcome of the space program, but the fact that a seemingly-impossible act, landing on the moon, was achieved because one man decided it had to be done.
I am not sure that you are wrong about John (and also not sure why you give Robert a pass), but Teddy, even if he did have his seat bought for him, put in decades of solid work in the senate. Whether or not you agree with his political stance, he was an effective politician who earned his influence and achievements.
I was in high school when JFK was elected, and a college freshman when he was assassinated.
Yes, it was believed that his father bought the election, and many people disliked him for any number of other reasons. He made plenty of mistakes in office, and was certainly not universally adulated as today’s people think. But he brought youth and culture to the White House (with no small help from Jackie), although his “style” was much greater than his “substance.” I think he should rightfully be credited for getting Americans to the moon, but other than that, I seriously doubt whether he’d be remembered much if he hadn’t been assassinated.
Rating the American Presidents 2 years ago was one of the very first SDMB threads I participated in. I described JFK as a Jekyll and Hyde President and still believe that. (Other obvious Jekyll-Hydes are LBJ, Nixon, perhaps Jackson, Reagan.)
And womanizers so egregious as to make Clinton look like a faithful husband.
Kennedy provoked the Cuban Missile Crisis with his arrogant approach to “diplomacy” and insistence on personal control of adventures like Bay of Pigs despite his inexperience.
The space program (and some other things, e.g. Peace Corps) is what is BEST about Kennedy, and redeems some of his weaknesses. I don’t accept that the Moon-landing program cut off the future of space exploration.
Going strictly by the numbers, Vietnam might seem to be LBJ’s mistake more than anyone. But I think LBJ was sucked into a misbegotten plan originated by Kennedy because, again, of Kennedy’s arrogant, foolish and self-centered “statesmanship.”
I agree with this.
I’ve mentioned Hersh’s book Dark Side of Camelot on this board before. It’s much despised by Kennedy lovers, but none of them has ever pointed to a demonstrably false statement in that book.
"And was he the true cousin of Sir Jesus Christ?"
As usual, Brad Neely tells us the hidden truth about our Presidents~
I’ll add two anecdotes, one positive and one negative.
Historian Barbara Tuchman, in The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, notes that Kennedy sent a special envoy, whom he trusted, to Vietnam, to survey the situation and report back on whether the US should get involved. The envoy’s report was decidedly against any US involvement.
So he sent a second envoy. That one, too, reported that the US should stay out. So he sent a third one. That one burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one…well, he too reported that it would harm the US to get involved.
And so on and so on, until seven trusted “best and brightest” analysts had unanimously recommended NOT getting involved in France’s colonial quagmire.
So Kennedy decided to get involved. There’s a reason the book is called The March of Folly.
That said, just last night I was watching a history program about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and a Soviet figure (I think he was a general, but he could have been an ambassador) said, “Thank God Kennedy wasn’t like our Khrushchev. Khrushchev said ‘if you want a nuclear war we will give you one!’ But Kennedy was a balanced man.”
That, of course, comes from one of his “enemies” whom he supposedly “humiliated,” so it carries weight.
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It puzzles me how some people love JFK, hate Nixon & vice versa. It seems to me that they had more in common than either of their fans will admit. The Kennedy family provided support to both Nixon & Joe McCarthy at various times. Considering his humble background (& I imagine, an inferiority complex) I think Nixon would have loved being a Kennedy. People still moan about Nixon’s “dirty tricks”, but I’ve seen interviews with former Kennedy staffers where they laugh & boast about some of the crap Joe Kennedy pulled to put his boys in office.
It’s the assassination - as Jesus and Jim Croce can tell you, nothing does for your reputation more than a well-timed and publicized death. 
Jackie, the Princess Di of her day, helped as well to keep the JFK myth alive.
You and me both. Those who offer the harshest criticism are looking at the man in retrospect, and not through the lens of a contemporary. History is seldom kind, and all that is known now was not known then. The presidency had not seen his like before: someone who had a pretty, outspoken and intelligent wife, was intelligent himself, charismatic and visionary. That his youth and vision were snatched from us with such brutality and suddeness was shocking beyond comprehension. I remember sitting in stunned silence in my hight school math class while the girls sobbed uncontrolably. There were many who hated him (my brother for one, who still celebrates the assassination), but most were saddened by his passing.
Barak Obama is similar to Kennedy in some respects: the charisma, the vision for America, etc. Fifty years from now, your grandchildren will be asking the same questions as the OP: why did people like him so much when he wasn’t all that great a president? The answers will be somewhat the same.